Because everything I've read about people's opinions say they'll kill the Apple TV in favor of an Apple HDTV. There's no point having both when the TV does nothing the box wouldn't.

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and some old contacts I have are talking about a possible TV plan.

And how is that 'revolutionizing' TV? That sounds exactly like every TV service ever. Apple's gig would be to make deals with individual SHOWS on each channel, giving us ONLY what we want.

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btw I never told you this.

Don't worry. Even if you actually had any real inside information, I wouldn't remember it.

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So are you going to buy your Apple TV lock or unlock?

I want an A6 box that can play back iTunes content without having a computer on and iTunes open. There's no point in having apps. There's no point in having the Internet. I want to play the content I already have; that's all I need.

Because everything I've read about people's opinions say they'll kill the Apple TV in favor of an Apple HDTV. There's no point having both when the TV does nothing the box wouldn't.

And how is that 'revolutionizing' TV? That sounds exactly like every TV service ever. Apple's gig would be to make deals with individual SHOWS on each channel, giving us ONLY what we want.

Don't worry. Even if you actually had any real inside information, I wouldn't remember it.

I want an A6 box that can play back iTunes content without having a computer on and iTunes open. There's no point in having apps. There's no point in having the Internet. I want to play the content I already have; that's all I need.

imo you will still be able to subscribe only to the shows you want, this is why Apple will offer VOD. But if you want live feeds from Apple its not going to happen. Don't worry about the box only Apple TV, they are going to offer it still. And you're problem with iTunes is not an hardware problem, its software. How about if you could access a Time capsuled content library from the Apple TV? You say you don't want apps, but put the Air Video Server iPAD App on the Apple TV, tweak it to access a net drive and you're in business.

In fact, you can do this right now with the Apple Tv 2 with XBMC for Apple TV 2. but this required a jailbreak and its not for the average user.

So… NOT revolutionizing TV, then. Because that doesn't make it possible for anyone to cut cable/satellite at all.

Again, you can't know that.

I'm sure that's the case, but it's still in Apple's court to fix.

I am sure it would be nice to cut cable, but its not possible technically if large amount of users do it. Again I worked on the BCE network and it would not be possible even for them and they have a much better network than cable. Cable bandwidth is already saturated trying to squeeze HD channels. IPTV structures broadcast the feeds to nodes than stream the channels to house so there are no limit to how many live HD feeds they can add.

I don't know how to make you understand this. Live feed can't be cache, so you must broadcast the feeds has close has you can to the houses. then stream them to the house using the telephone line. The telco line has limited bandwidth, but it doesn't matter because its a per channel stream on this line. IPTV is a combination of broadcast and streaming, its brilliant. And you can't stream the feeds from a central point because it will make too many duplicate and use insane amount of bandwidth. You must broadcast the feed to the nodes to save bandwidth.

Cable has hit a wall:
The Cable bottleneck is between there node and you're house, its a broadcast of all the feeds. And to top it off they are still using MPEG-2 compression while iPTV is using MP4. Cable are in a very bad position they must upgrade to IPTV to add more HD channels. But cable is stuck with a huge inventory of MPEG2 broadcast set top boxes. To move from broadcast to IPTV they need to change all the user hardware and revamp there network. Just imagine how Apple could help them with that...

Why? If users do it, then companies build out more bandwidth. Period. This isn't negotiable; you follow what your users want or you die off.

Yes, okay.

No. Fiber. If Google can do 1Gbps to households, anyone can. They choose not to because they're lazy and greedy.

There's no real bandwidth limitation. You just lay more cable.

You have no idea how much this would cost apparently. And Cable is not going to kill itself by doing it. They control the pipe into you're home.... Neither DSL or Cable are going to do this unless they are force too. And adding more cable doesn't solve the problem of millions of duplicate live HD feeds. I don't think you realize how undoable this is. Fiber optics has its limits and the cost of this capacity is beyond whats doable. Not to mention plain stupid, since there is already a solution to avoid all that bandwidth waste.

You broadcast the feeds to nodes, you cache the VOD on the nodes, you stream from the node to the house. No need to re-wired anything. All this is done inside the ISP network, If Apple want to re-invent TV they must get in bed with Cable and tel co. like AT&T. Its the only way to get rid of all the different interfaces and external boxes. One TV, One interface for everything.

Google failed because they tried to do this without cable or studio consent. I don't know what they are smoking over there but it must be good stuff. But by buying Motorola they got one foot in the door. Motorola is the co making the IPTV box for AT&T and Bell.

No. Fiber. If Google can do 1Gbps to households, anyone can. They choose not to because they're lazy and greedy.

There's no real bandwidth limitation. You just lay more cable.

Bandwidth is a lot more then the cable, it's the HW that pumps the single. I've spent several years working for my local company dealing with the routers that switch between RF and IP. These are expensive in ways that most people can't fathom, and we are constantly having bottleneck issues. Of course, we still use MPEG-2 for our TV content (because that's what our boxes accept, which is due to decoding overhead) so that isn't helping but it's also not the biggest issue. It's not like these routers are easily replaced and each one needs a lot of testing before being added.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

I'm actually highballing the cost in my thinking. I just don't care. They've been given billions of dollars to build out their networks and they have done NOTHING. 3Mbps costs $40. In Japan $40 can net you 1,024Mbps. It's insanity. Apple shouldn't be limited in their thinking by nonsense that doesn't have to be the case.

I'm actually highballing the cost in my thinking. I just don't care. They've been given billions of dollars to build out their networks and they have done NOTHING. 3Mbps costs $40. In Japan $40 can net you 1,024Mbps. It's insanity. Apple shouldn't be limited in their thinking by nonsense that doesn't have to be the case.

If Cable lose there TV business they are going to charge you twice for your internet, so you're still not gonna save a dime. You may think packages are overprice, but go look at Cable earnings, they are not making insane profits. There is no free lunch.

and you only solved the node to your home problem. You still have to broadcast the feeds to the node. Millions of duplicate live feed is still going to bring down the ISP network, it not the entire internet backbone.

1. Who says I have cable?
2. Who says my ISP is a cable company or even owned by a cable company?

Exactly. So the ISPs need to stop eating out of the garbage bins behind the restaurant and go in and enact some actual change like everyone else.

You have what, DSL? I worked for a DSL company before. Same problem. And its not gonna happen over wireless. BTW U-verse is DSL.
I am currently using you're dream connection. I have VDSL2 with a cell pipe 7130 modem because I am already using Bell IPTV and I am connected to there brand new completely revamp network.

Not really regarding an 'Apple TV' per se, but with ANY streaming solution the problem as always is the content.

I tried out Netflix when it launched in the UK last month - it is an amazing service that works brilliantly across your devices and I loved the idea of a fixed monthly fee where I could watch anything I want , TV show or movie, whenever.

The problem with Netflix is the complete lack of content! My first 4 searches of movies I wanted to watch were not available for streaming.

I cancelled. Brilliant idea - not anywhere near enough content.

If Apple can find a way to get all the major studios/networks to agree and allow ALL their TV/Movies content to be streamed in HD, then I will sign up.. it is the way forward and the future.

Fact is, Apple is in a position to outbid ANYONE for first-run (apres-theater) rights to films. They could buy up all output from all major studios for a year (or many years, who knows) and become a major channel de facto. They could launch whatever they wanted with that brute-force approach. (I don't know that they WILL, just that they could.)

This is where that 97 billion dollars pile of cash will come in handy. All Apple needs to do is wave a couple billions in front of those TV executives and they'll be able to bring a la carte programming to the masses. Done deal.

Steve Jobs mentioned the problem with the TV market is having a "Go to market" strategy. No matter how fancy your hardware is, it will not suceed without allowing users to pay only for channels they will watch. This is like the iPod and the 99 cents song all over again. Without being able to buy individual songs instead of the whole album, how well would the iPod have done?

It's much more complicated than music. Cable doesn't allow a la carte for good reason....because it won't work. Comcast's CEO has discussed this on the record. He stated that channels like, say, Animal Planet, Discovery, HGTV (etc) would be gone overnight. They simply couldn't generate the revenue they needed.

The only way I see this working is a hybrid model, where Apple's TV includes DVR and supports providers OnDemand and other services, but gets them out of the hardware business, which I suspect wouldn't bother them too much. After all, they rent the hardware to the customer (sometimes for very little with a contract) and have to support it during that time. My neighbor works for a third party component repair/support company that deals with Comcast, and I know that the need for repair is unreal. They make their real money from their packages and programming, anyway.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

I am sure it would be nice to cut cable, but its not possible technically if large amount of users do it. Again I worked on the BCE network and it would not be possible even for them and they have a much better network than cable. Cable bandwidth is already saturated trying to squeeze HD channels. IPTV structures broadcast the feeds to nodes than stream the channels to house so there are no limit to how many live HD feeds they can add.

I don't know how to make you understand this. Live feed can't be cache, so you must broadcast the feeds has close has you can to the houses. then stream them to the house using the telephone line. The telco line has limited bandwidth, but it doesn't matter because its a per channel stream on this line. IPTV is a combination of broadcast and streaming, its brilliant. And you can't stream the feeds from a central point because it will make too many duplicate and use insane amount of bandwidth. You must broadcast the feed to the nodes to save bandwidth.

Cable has hit a wall:
The Cable bottleneck is between there node and you're house, its a broadcast of all the feeds. And to top it off they are still using MPEG-2 compression while iPTV is using MP4. Cable are in a very bad position they must upgrade to IPTV to add more HD channels. But cable is stuck with a huge inventory of MPEG2 broadcast set top boxes. To move from broadcast to IPTV they need to change all the user hardware and revamp there network. Just imagine how Apple could help them with that...

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Originally Posted by herbapou

The problem with live TV is more at the ISP level than on the internet backbone. Once you enter the ISP network, a large amount of stream coming from the net will bring down the network. ISP will have to get in and reduce those stream bit per second the same way they do it with peer to peer transfert. But with live TV that means the live stream will be unwatchable.

An IPTV network is a complex system that is implemented inside the ISP network. The live feeds are broadcast to nodes close to homes using fiber optics. The streaming occurs between those nodes and the houses. This is why its crucial for Apple to strike deals with Cable and AT&T.

The way I see it, Apple will be providing the smart-TV ecosystem, TV's and set-top box. Cable wont have to invest money trying to build an ecosystem. The real negociation will be over Video on Demand. Apple need to strike deals that split the profits between the ISP and Apple. Apple will provide the VOD ecosystem and manage it. The ISP will distribute it inside there network for reliable streaming without consuming internet bandwith. An ISP could also strike deals with google or Amazon at the same time, different ecosystem and VOD sources, they get there cut on all sides and the consumer gets more choices.

I cannot stress enough that trying to fight the ISP over live TV would be a major mistake.

Wha? It's been a while since I've worked network and then only for core routers but this doesn't make any sense to me.

First, you can implement IP video broadcast (IP multicast) over DOCSIS 3.0...along with VOIP, VOD (IP unicast), etc. These can be broken out into different bandwidth groups with differing levels of QoS.

Frankly I'd say that Verizon has more reach than AT&T Uverse. And US deployment isn't just FTTN but also FTTP. UVerse is FTTN with the last segment being copper. My FiOS installation is fiber all the way to the ONU in my house.

As far as MSO plants, local loop bandwidth, etc even without DOCSIS 3.0 there are ways to manage traffic load. Of course D3 channel bonding only goes so far and eventually you have to do a node split. I understand Rogers hates doing that but congested ports on the CMTS has only one solution. More ports. Well, now that we've dumped some analog channels anyway so that route is largely used up when they ports saturate again. But freeing up 40-50 analog channels really gave back quite a bit of bandwidth.

Comcast, with FiOS nipping on it's heels, apparently is more than willing to do node splits in those markets.

Like I said, I've been out of it for more than a few years but back when Comcast was already talking all about VDOC (video over DOCSIS) using IP and the other major US MSOs were on the same track. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc are all sinking large amounts of CAPEX in their builds. A little less now than before because of the economy but none are going to let the others get the technology edge unchallenged.

Comcast has been talking about IP convergence since before I left the industry. I recall reading that Comcast and Time Warner merged their CMAP and CESAR architectures into a new acronym last year called CCAP under Cablelabs. Comcast is trialing CCAP gear (relabeled CMAP gear)
on some test headends as we speak.

So I wouldn't count cable out. And UVerse with their FTTN architecture has many of the same issues as the cable MSOs in comparison to the FTTH FiOS approach.

My impression that the MPEG2 is driven by the STB deployment that can only decode MPEG 2. As more of these get replaced with STBs with MPEG 4 decode they can fix that.

There's been almost no mention of a Siri interface lately for a rumored Apple TV in any AI articles, nor those at other sites with Apple connections that I can find. I hadn't really paid attention to that until reading about a Google patent for a similar voice interface for televisions filed last September, courtesy of Patently Apple: